


Magnetic Field

by inoubliable



Series: Skin&Earth [11]
Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Depression, I'm Sorry, M/M, Memory Loss, Mental Health Issues, Nothing is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 09:37:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13268718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inoubliable/pseuds/inoubliable
Summary: Eddie Kaspbrak is nineteen years old. He's having a hard time adjusting to life outside of Derry, to say the least.--Richie is a bright point in the black hole that makes up his memories of Derry, but that light gets dimmer every day. Eventually, Eddie knows, it is going to snuff out, and Eddie will be left with nothing but darkness and this deep well of depression.





	Magnetic Field

**Author's Note:**

> "Cause this full metal alchemy  
> just brings about the best in me each time.  
> And all these sacred memories  
> that summon me are mine."  
> -[Magnetic Field](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK6W9sN2ae4), Lights

Eddie Kaspbrak is nineteen years old.

College is hard. Harder than he expects. There are deadlines, and responsibilities, and his mother isn’t around to tell him to eat or take his medication. She’s a couple hundred miles away, back in Maine, and she calls to remind him of that constantly. He promised to come home for the holidays, but it didn’t work out. He didn’t have the money, or the time, or the desire. He doesn’t want to see his mother. He doesn’t want to go back home.

He has always wanted to escape Derry, and it almost feels like he has. He’s so busy with school that he can almost forget where he came from. Little details have already started to go missing. He forgets the route he biked to school every morning. He forgets the exact color of his childhood home. He forgets the name of the pharmacist who filled his prescriptions for years.

By the time he realizes he’s forgetting too much, it’s too late to remember.

He still calls Richie, twice a week like clockwork. It’s all he has time for. Richie always answers, like he schedules those precious few moments into his day. It means so much to Eddie that it feels, at least for a little while, like everything’s okay.

Everything is not okay.

Eddie is depressed. He knows it. The school counselor knows it. He’s supposed to see her every Wednesday morning, but he almost always cancels. He doesn’t want to talk about his problems, and he doesn’t want her to shove another medication down his throat. He’s had enough of that to last him a lifetime, thanks very much.

And it’s fine. He’s fine. He can handle it, this crushing, bone-deep sadness that sometimes wells up out of absolutely nowhere. He just has to lie in bed under the covers and shake and shake and shake until he finally feels like he can feel something again.

He tries not to cry when he calls Richie, but sometimes he can’t help it. Richie can always tell, partly because Richie just knows him but also because Eddie is not very good at hiding it, his voice shaky and wet.

It’s one of those times, this week. He’s crying before Richie even answers.

“Eddie?” Richie’s voice in his ear makes his chest feel tight, the first real thing he’s felt in days. “Baby?”

“I’m sorry.” Eddie sniffles pathetically. He’s so, so tired. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Richie says fiercely, but they both know it’s not true.

The phone cord won’t reach all the way to Eddie’s bed, so he curls up on the floor, even though it’s dirty. He feels sort of empty inside, like he can’t work up the emotion to care about much of anything, not even the mysterious stain on the carpet, inches from his face.

“I just miss you,” he sighs, his eyes falling closed, tears seeping from between his lashes. Eddie hates crying. It’s messy and ugly and gross. But right now, he can’t force himself to care.

“I miss you, too.” Richie’s voice sounds so yearning across all that distance. He sounds as far away as he is. Eddie thinks maybe he’s so sad because he left his soul with Richie, all the way back in Derry. “I wish you could come home.”

The thought of going home makes Eddie feel sick, but he does not tell Richie that.

“I will,” he promises. “Soon.” And it almost sounds like he’s telling the truth.

They talk for awhile, about everything and nothing at all. Eddie still feels hollow when he hears the final click of Richie hanging up the phone. He falls asleep on the floor.

He dreams about the Neibolt house, though he does not remember that is its name. He remembers it only as a fading nightmare: a dark, desolate hallway, long rotten fingers, a broken arm. There was a clown. And his friends, though he can’t remember if their auburn-haired leader’s name is Mike or Bill. Maybe Ben. He sees all of their faces, but he can’t remember who is who.

Richie was there.

Richie had held Eddie’s face in his hands and told him that nothing was going to happen to him.

Something is happening, now. He can’t remember. He can’t _remember_. He can picture his favorite sixth grade science teacher, but he cannot recall her name. He knows he had a first kiss, but he does not know who he shared it with. He lost his virginity to Richie, but was it in the backseat of Richie’s car or in his own childhood bed? His head is a jumble of disjointed memories, and sometimes there are just… gaps.

He remembers Richie best, but that’s not saying much.

Are Richie’s eyes blue or brown? Are his freckles just a splatter across his nose, or are they dotted along his entire body? Does Eddie really have to tilt his head that far back to look at him?

His head hurts, trying to figure it all out.

“You should come visit,” Eddie says, the next time they talk. He’s not crying this time, but he sounds sad even to his own ears. He’s been trying to remember Richie’s middle name all day.

There’s a long pause, and Eddie knows Richie is going to say no even before he does. “I can’t, Eds. It’s expensive.” He must hear Eddie’s heart breaking, because he says, “Maybe for your birthday?”

Does Richie remember when his birthday is? Because Eddie can’t remember Richie’s.

He falls behind in his school work. He can’t focus. Whenever he sits down to study, he finds himself prodding into the black gap of his memory, like a tongue poking at the space a missing tooth leaves. He does not eat much, and he sleeps even less.

When he looks in the mirror, he looks gaunt. His mother would just die if she could see him. She won’t, though. Eddie’s not ever going home. He can’t. He _can't_.

Richie is a bright point in the black hole that makes up his memories of Derry, but that light gets dimmer every day. Eventually, Eddie knows, it is going to snuff out, and Eddie will be left with nothing but darkness and this deep well of depression.

He doesn’t call Richie the next week, or the week after.

Richie calls him. Frequently at first, then less and less. He never stops, though. Not even when they both know that Eddie is never going to answer.

Eventually, Eddie unplugs the phone from the wall. He does not cry. He does not feel anything.

It’s the first night he sleeps without dreaming.

**Author's Note:**

> _2..._


End file.
